In Skyrim, as with most RPGs, I find myself overwhelmed by a compulsive desire to obtain all of the things. All of them. To this end, I wound up picking up five iron warhammers...only to find out that I had exceeded my maximum weight carrying capacity and that my character had been slowed to a snail's pace. This simply cannot do: I need to make sure I have as much storage space as possible so I can sell as much as possible and become rich quickly. How do I increase the amount of storage space my character can carry? Alternatively, is there a way to disable this system altogether? I find it very annoying.

You're going to punch yourself later after you've spent all those non-refundable perks just to augment your carry weight. Now on my fifth play-through, I've found that it's better to max out your smithing so you don't feel the urge to clear every Dwemer ruin of its heavy scrap metal. Learn the Daedra banishing enchantment and sell iron daggers for 1,000+ gold. You can do all this before the need for fortified carry weight comes into play. Also, pack smart. Calculate an item's weight/value ratio and ditch anything with a low ratio regardless how high its value is.
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oscilatingcretinAug 15 '12 at 23:41

Is this the only factor that influences it? How about my race and perks?
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ManaNov 11 '11 at 6:42

1

@Mana: Races are the same, aside from skill bonuses and special powers. The light/heavy armor trees have perks to reduce the weight of armor that you are wearing.
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ArkiveNov 11 '11 at 6:46

1

There are also a couple of items which increase carry weight. For example, I have a mask (can't remember the name, got it from some hard as skeleton starting with a V) that increases my carry weight by 20.
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Mr SmoothNov 16 '11 at 3:58

tgm (ToggleGodMode) will remove encumbrance, but will also have the side effect of making the player invincible.
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ArkiveNov 11 '11 at 18:35

7

Actually X in the above is added to your current carry weight. So if you could carry 300 and ran player.modav carryweight 1000 you would be able to carry 1300. Just double checked it in current steam version of the game.
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Red_TractorNov 13 '11 at 17:19

1

You can use player.setav instead of player.modav to set an exact value (as opposed to adding/subtracting from the current one).
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AarobotNov 16 '11 at 3:03

5

According to this, modifications made with player.setav only remain during that session of game play. In other words, if you save your game and come back later, the modifications will be gone. Modifications made with player.modav, on the other hand, will remain persistant.
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MaleficMarauderJan 18 '12 at 3:40

Equipment enchanted with Carry Weight gives +x carry weight. Qualifying equipment that can be worn at same time includes Gloves, Boots, Necklace, and Ring. You can get +40 on each of those once you have 100 enchantment, use a grand soul, and Enchanter's Philfer.
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Get a house ASAP so you can put your unused, heavy, don't want to sell items safely in chest or special display (book shelves, weapon racks, or mannequins)

Get a follower that can carry your extra crap. They don't seem to benefit from armor extra carry perks so give them light armor and light weapons. The armor you give them has to be better than their "default" for them to wear it which means you will need to Smith upgrade or Enchant upgrade to get them to use light armor over their default heavy in some cases.
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My advise is to only carry what you need. Don't worry about money, once you can Enchant, Smith, or Alchemy at high levels you will be making more money than you know what to do with.

For skill upgrades, I recommend you focus on Speech and Alchemy in terms of trainers. You can pickpocket them after each paid training (provided good enough pickpocketing). Don't do multiple pickpockets as the chance to pickpocket successfully is inversely proportional to value to be swiped. Save often in this scenario as 90% success seems to be the cap. The perk to steal coins more easily might be worth your effort or enchanted apparel for pickpocketing (like what you get for joining Thieves Guild) or potions.

~500-1000 gold for training + pickpocket seems like too good a way to basically upgrade two skills (the one you paid and pickpocketing) very quickly.

Your companions such as Lydia can also carry items for you if you talk to them and select can you carry something (or something to that effect). This is also how you would give them new armor or weapons, they will equip anything better than what they are currently using.

Also, use the "I want you to do something for me" statement on your companion. You can have them take the entire contents of an unlocked box or just throw your burdens on the ground and have them pick it up. Companions have unlimited carryweight this way.

I've not seen this and tried speaking a few times.
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LaykeNov 16 '11 at 9:41

they have to be following you, and then you talk to them and use the dialog option that says something about "trading items" (it's a little different for each character). I hate having followers kill monsters I wanted to kill, but I do love having them carry around my loot.
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sXeNov 16 '11 at 17:50

Another way you can increase the amount you can carry, but only temporarily, which hasn't been mentioned yet is a Fortify Carry Weight potion. Ingredients for a Fortify Carry Weight potion include; Creep Cluster, Giant's Toe, Hawk Beak, River Betty, Scaly Pholiata and Wisp Wrappings.

There is another option, called the Steed Stone. It's one of thirteen guardian stones which, if you visit and activate them, give you perks. The seed stone is located due west of the Thalmor Embassy, at the very top of that tall mountain you can see on the map. Climb up the mountain, and you'll find a large stone. Just press "E" to activate it, and you receive carry weight + 100, I believe, and your armor becomes weightless.

Make fortify restoration potions, drink, undress alchemy gear and dress it again, gulp another restoration potion, repeat several times, keep checking your alchemy gear effect under active effects menu. Then if high enough, create +40,000% enchanting potions, and drink before enchanting carry weight gear. I carry hundreds of books and weapons... With 32,000 point carry weight boots. I'm only at 4,500 now and I guess you only need 1,000 before you're gonna get annoyed at the slow loading times anyways.

First, join the thieves guild to get the armor. Do all the quests they ask you to do, and eventually you will be asked which piece of armor you want upgraded. Tell her you want the chest part upgraded as this is the one with carry weight plus. From here you can either do the alchemy glitch and make the enchantment really strong, or you can duplicate the armor and do the multiple armor glitch. Here are links for all three glitches: